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An interesting look at one of the rites of Summer: girl-watching
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Jun 28, 2007 04:30 AM
Judy Gerstel
Living Reporter
With her toned body, long bronzed legs fringed by short shorts and platinum blonde hair, Monica Cerbu is an eye-catcher.
Walking her fox terrier in a downtown park on a warm morning, the fitness trainer, 36, catches the eye of Rob Pansino, wearing a hard hat as he makes his way to the adjacent Hydro One construction site.
Pansino, 27, predictably, takes a good, long look at Cerbu, walks on, then turns for a last look.
Girl-watching summer '07 – harmless, pleasurable, hot weather rite? Or wrong – objectifying, sexualizing and degrading?
"It's complicated," says Judith Szamosi, 27, a Toronto office worker. She started Hollaback Canada (hollabackcanada.blogspot.com), a site that invites women to post images or descriptions of men who have made them feel uncomfortable in public places.
Discreet glances are fine but anything more might be regarded as harassment, Szamosi says.
"People look at people they find attractive, it's normal. But letting them know, so they pay attention to the fact that you think they're sexy, that's not cool."
And it's not only whistles, comments or gestures – let alone flashing or touching – that's not okay.
"Being silent can be an attention-getter, if it's a certain look. We draw the line at any attention-getting behaviour," Szamosi says.
Observes York University sociologist Rhonda Lenton: "There definitely has been a change in what type of behaviours are encompassed within definitions of sexual harassment."
Lenton says it also depends on context – a 14-year-old in an isolated location is likely to feel more threatened by a male stranger's attention than a thirtysomething on a restaurant patio.
"Quite a few young women would almost feel offended if they were out in the evening and feeling positive about themselves and nobody noticed," says Lenton, dean of the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York.
And yet, her paper, Sexual Harassment in Public Places, found nine in 10 Canadian women reported at least one incident of public harassment – defined as "unwanted attention" of any kind, including "being stared at in a way that made you feel uncomfortable."
It's a different world than when New York advertising copywriter Don Sauer published, in 1954, The Girl Watcher's Guide.
A few years ago, Sauer mourned the death of "man's favourite sport." He wrote about his "bewildered sadness that an occasional and usually spontaneous pastime I considered pleasurable and innocent has been declared uncouth and offensive ... "
Sauer and the celebration of girl-watching is the subject of an essay by former Torontonian Aurora Wallace, a New York University professor, appearing next month in the journal Space and Culture.
"It looks like sexual harassment when a woman is walking by a construction site and getting whistled at," she says over the phone, "but girl-watching, as Don wrote about it, is polite, professional and extremely appreciative, an art – how to do it properly, how not to be invasive, how not to be leering or smarmy.
"It was actually quite charming."
Always, in urban public spaces, we are all participating in some dynamic of interaction, Wallace explains, more so "in Italy because part of the culture is to look at each other and even comment" and "perhaps less so in Toronto.
"It's what cities are all about: willing engagement with perfect strangers at close proximity."
It's unwilling engagement with male strangers that brought Hollaback into being in New York in 2005 (hollabacknyc.com).
Emily May, 26, and her friends were "all reporting three to five incidents of street harassment every day on average ... an epidemic.
"Everywhere you go, you hear comments (from men)," she says. "It speaks to the power dynamics between men and women."
May says 13- to 15-year-olds, especially, are "dumbfounded by the idea that all of a sudden they're being sexualized on the street."
Nor does it seem to matter whether it's winter and women are bundled up, or summer when they're more exposed, she says.
Besides, she insists, "women should be able to wear their underwear walking down the street and not be made uncomfortable."
But, she adds, "we're not saying men shouldn't be allowed to look at women in the street. If it's really appreciation, it should be done respectfully. And if the women enjoy it, they enjoy it."
Cerbu says she doesn't notice whether men are looking at her. . "I'm not looking for attention and I don't pay attention – as long as he doesn't make comments."
And what is construction worker Pansino's view? "I think a lot of women think we're pigs if we look at them but, to me, I think they should take it as a compliment," he says. "Women look at men just as much as we look at them but they don't admit it."
Are construction workers unfairly maligned for ogling? "Construction workers do get a bad name for this – rightfully, in some cases."
And then, he has a question: "Is she single?"
SOURCE
.........
Jun 28, 2007 04:30 AM
Judy Gerstel
Living Reporter
With her toned body, long bronzed legs fringed by short shorts and platinum blonde hair, Monica Cerbu is an eye-catcher.
Walking her fox terrier in a downtown park on a warm morning, the fitness trainer, 36, catches the eye of Rob Pansino, wearing a hard hat as he makes his way to the adjacent Hydro One construction site.
Pansino, 27, predictably, takes a good, long look at Cerbu, walks on, then turns for a last look.
Girl-watching summer '07 – harmless, pleasurable, hot weather rite? Or wrong – objectifying, sexualizing and degrading?
"It's complicated," says Judith Szamosi, 27, a Toronto office worker. She started Hollaback Canada (hollabackcanada.blogspot.com), a site that invites women to post images or descriptions of men who have made them feel uncomfortable in public places.
Discreet glances are fine but anything more might be regarded as harassment, Szamosi says.
"People look at people they find attractive, it's normal. But letting them know, so they pay attention to the fact that you think they're sexy, that's not cool."
And it's not only whistles, comments or gestures – let alone flashing or touching – that's not okay.
"Being silent can be an attention-getter, if it's a certain look. We draw the line at any attention-getting behaviour," Szamosi says.
Observes York University sociologist Rhonda Lenton: "There definitely has been a change in what type of behaviours are encompassed within definitions of sexual harassment."
Lenton says it also depends on context – a 14-year-old in an isolated location is likely to feel more threatened by a male stranger's attention than a thirtysomething on a restaurant patio.
"Quite a few young women would almost feel offended if they were out in the evening and feeling positive about themselves and nobody noticed," says Lenton, dean of the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York.
And yet, her paper, Sexual Harassment in Public Places, found nine in 10 Canadian women reported at least one incident of public harassment – defined as "unwanted attention" of any kind, including "being stared at in a way that made you feel uncomfortable."
It's a different world than when New York advertising copywriter Don Sauer published, in 1954, The Girl Watcher's Guide.
A few years ago, Sauer mourned the death of "man's favourite sport." He wrote about his "bewildered sadness that an occasional and usually spontaneous pastime I considered pleasurable and innocent has been declared uncouth and offensive ... "
Sauer and the celebration of girl-watching is the subject of an essay by former Torontonian Aurora Wallace, a New York University professor, appearing next month in the journal Space and Culture.
"It looks like sexual harassment when a woman is walking by a construction site and getting whistled at," she says over the phone, "but girl-watching, as Don wrote about it, is polite, professional and extremely appreciative, an art – how to do it properly, how not to be invasive, how not to be leering or smarmy.
"It was actually quite charming."
Always, in urban public spaces, we are all participating in some dynamic of interaction, Wallace explains, more so "in Italy because part of the culture is to look at each other and even comment" and "perhaps less so in Toronto.
"It's what cities are all about: willing engagement with perfect strangers at close proximity."
It's unwilling engagement with male strangers that brought Hollaback into being in New York in 2005 (hollabacknyc.com).
Emily May, 26, and her friends were "all reporting three to five incidents of street harassment every day on average ... an epidemic.
"Everywhere you go, you hear comments (from men)," she says. "It speaks to the power dynamics between men and women."
May says 13- to 15-year-olds, especially, are "dumbfounded by the idea that all of a sudden they're being sexualized on the street."
Nor does it seem to matter whether it's winter and women are bundled up, or summer when they're more exposed, she says.
Besides, she insists, "women should be able to wear their underwear walking down the street and not be made uncomfortable."
But, she adds, "we're not saying men shouldn't be allowed to look at women in the street. If it's really appreciation, it should be done respectfully. And if the women enjoy it, they enjoy it."
Cerbu says she doesn't notice whether men are looking at her. . "I'm not looking for attention and I don't pay attention – as long as he doesn't make comments."
And what is construction worker Pansino's view? "I think a lot of women think we're pigs if we look at them but, to me, I think they should take it as a compliment," he says. "Women look at men just as much as we look at them but they don't admit it."
Are construction workers unfairly maligned for ogling? "Construction workers do get a bad name for this – rightfully, in some cases."
And then, he has a question: "Is she single?"
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